Скачать книгу

-883e-9c5d4b073d6f">

      

       Image Missing

Image Missing

       Copyright

      HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

      First published in the United States by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

      Copyright © Lou Berney 2018

      Lou Berney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

      Cover photographs © Rae Russel/Getty Images (front), Shutterstock.com (back)

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

      Source ISBN: 9780008309329

      Ebook Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 9780008309367

      Version: 2020-10-30

       Dedication

       For Adam, Jake, and Sam

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      1963

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Chapter 31

       Chapter 32

       Chapter 33

       2003

       Epilogue

       Acknowledgments

       Read on for an exclusive Q&A …

       About the Author

       Also by Lou Berney

       About the Publisher

1963

       1

      Behold! The Big Easy in all its wicked splendor!

      Frank Guidry paused at the corner of Toulouse to bask in the neon furnace glow. He’d lived in New Orleans the better part of his thirty-seven years on earth, but the dirty glitter and sizzle of the French Quarter still hit his bloodstream like a drug. Yokels and locals, muggers and hustlers, fire-eaters and magicians. A go-go girl was draped over the wrought-iron rail of a second-floor balcony, one boob sprung free from her sequined negligee and swaying like a metronome to the beat of the jazz trio inside. Bass, drums, piano, tearing through “Night and Day.” But that was New Orleans for you. Even the worst band in the crummiest clip joint in the city could swing, man, swing.

      A guy came whipping up the street, screaming bloody murder. Hot on his heels—a woman waving a butcher knife, screaming, too.

      Guidry soft-shoed out of their way. The beat cop on the corner yawned. The juggler outside the 500 Club didn’t drop a ball. Just another Wednesday night on Bourbon Street.

      “Come on, fellas!” The go-go girl on the balcony wagged her boob at a pair of drunken sailors. They stood swaying on the curb, watching their pal puke into the gutter. “Be a gent and buy a lady a drink!”

      The sailors leered up at her. “How much?”

      “How much you got?”

      Guidry smiled. And so the world spins round. The go-go girl had black velvet kitten ears pinned to her bouffant and false eyelashes so long that Guidry didn’t know how she could see through them. Maybe that was the point.

      He turned onto Bienville, easing through the crowd. He wore a gray-on-gray nailhead suit the color of wet asphalt, cut from a lightweight wool-silk blend that his tailor ordered in special from Italy. White shirt, crimson tie. No hat. If the president of the United States didn’t need a hat, then neither did Guidry.

      A right on Royal. The bellhop at the Monteleone scrambled to open the door for him. “How’s tricks, Mr. Guidry?”

      “Well, Tommy, I’ll tell you,” Guidry said. “I’m too old to learn any new ones, but the old ones still work just fine.”

      The Carousel Bar was popping, as usual. Guidry said hello hello hello how’re you how’re you as he worked his

Скачать книгу